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The shocking story behind The Lark Ascending
It might sound like a song of beauty from the summer sky but the piece regularly voted the nation’s favourite takes inspiration from a darker place.
It might sound like a song of beauty from the summer sky, but the piece regularly voted the nation’s favourite takes inspiration from a darker place. Stuart Maconie tells the story of how serving on the front line in World War One powerfully affected Ralph Vaughan Williams.
Produced by Simon Furber
Image: The opening page from Vaughan Williams’s manuscript score of The Lark Ascending, courtesy of The British Library
